Trump and Putin to meet in Alaska to discuss ending Russia's war in Ukraine

President Donald Trump said he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next Friday in Alaska to discuss ending Moscow's all-out war in Ukraine.

The details, which Trump announced on social media early Saturday, were confirmed by Putin's aide Yury Ushakov, according to Russian state-run agency Tass.

On Saturday evening, a US officials told CBS News that Trump would be willing to hold a trilateral meeting including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Such a summit may prove pivotal in a war that began more than three years ago when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its western neighbour, leading to tens of thousands of deaths — although there is no guarantee it will stop the fighting, given Moscow's maximalist demands.

In comments to reporters at the White House before his post confirming the date and place, Trump suggested that any agreement would likely involve “some swapping of territories," but he gave no details.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post on Saturday, "The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question already is in the Constitution of Ukraine. No one will deviate from this – and no one will be able to. Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier."

"The Ukrainian people deserve peace. But all partners must understand what a dignified peace is. This war must be brought to an end – and Russia must end it," Zelenskyy emphasised.

"We are ready to work together with President Trump, together with all our partners for real and, most importantly, lasting peace. A peace that will not collapse because of Moscow's desires."

'I don't like using the term last chance'

Trump's announcement that he planned to host one of Washington's adversaries on US soil broke with expectations that they'd meet in a third country, with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Vatican all proposed as possible venues.

Putin's last visit to the US was in 2015, when he attended the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. The meeting in Alaska would be the first US-Russia summit since 2021, when former US President Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva.

After announcing Friday a peace deal aimed at ending decades of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan Trump said he would meet with Putin “very shortly".

His subsequent post said “the highly anticipated meeting” would happen on 15 August in Alaska and more details would follow.

Trump had told reporters that the summit would have been sooner, “but I guess there’s security arrangements that unfortunately people have to make.”

Trump said, “President Putin, I believe, wants to see peace, and Zelenskyy wants to see peace."

“In all fairness to President Zelenskyy, he’s getting everything he needs to, assuming we get something done," Trump added.

Pressed on if this was the last chance to make a major peace deal, Trump said, “I don’t like using the term last chance,” and said that, “When those guns start going off, it’s awfully tough to get ’em to stop.”

Exasperated that Putin did not heed his calls to stop bombing Ukrainian cities, Trump almost two weeks ago moved up his ultimatum to impose additional sanctions on Russia and introduce secondary tariffs targeting countries that buy Russian oil if the Kremlin did not move toward a settlement.

The deadline was Friday. But the White House did not answer questions that evening about the state of possible sanctions after Trump's announcement of an upcoming meeting with Putin.

Prior to Trump announcing the meeting with Putin, his efforts to pressure Russia into stopping the fighting had delivered no progress.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment Thursday that “Putin remains uninterested in ending his war and is attempting to extract bilateral concessions from the United States without meaningfully engaging in a peace process.”

“Putin continues to believe that time is on Russia’s side and that Russia can outlast Ukraine and the West,” it said.